


The Wind And His Boy

by MsBluebell



Series: Jokul Frosti [1]
Category: Norse Religion & Lore, Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Asexual Character, Creative Licence used with Mythology and Character interpretations, Gen, He's not Loki, Hinted child murder, Identity Issues, Logi is the worry-wort brother, Mild-Avengers Crossover, Oblivious Jack, Protective Kari, Relationship issues from an inhuman character, body image issue, implied dub-con, possibly unrealistically supportive Norse parents/brothers, stop thinking that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-20
Updated: 2014-09-20
Packaged: 2018-02-18 01:52:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2330864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MsBluebell/pseuds/MsBluebell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There were two great loves in the Wind's life; one was his freedom and the other was his son.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Wind And His Boy

**Author's Note:**

> “Nothing, Everything, Anything, Something: If you have nothing, then you have everything, because you have the freedom to do anything, without the fear of losing something.”   
> ― Jarod Kintz

The wind bowed to no one.

It was common knowledge among the spirit world that he wasn’t cable of being commanded or wooed to any one side. He’d answer no summons, carry no deity, nor compromised with any plan. He was intangible; unable to be tortured or seduced into a single act. Mother Nature herself had been unable to force him into her command.

When Ymir, the wind’s father and only confidant, refused to reign in his son in the rest of the spirit world had given up on the idea of commanding the wind. They’d abandoned him after that; as unwilling to interact with him as he was with them.

And that was just fine in the wind’s opinion; he needed no more company.

He rides where he will, never particularly caring for those who fight against his tide nor those who land themselves among his waves. He simply remains uncaring for them; so busy was he enjoying the freedom to simply be. He twirls and dances as he pleases; unmindful of his raging brother the sea or playful brother the fire. He dances across the sky with no one but himself and the colors, and the heat, and the mist.

He is a thing of beauty, his brother the fire once told him, an untouchable temptation teasing all around him with grace unmatched. Like a Lionfish, his brother the sea spits, colorful and vibrant but venomous to those that try to catch him. Like ice, his other father Mistblindi whispers, so very cold but shining brighter than any other underneath the sun.

He dances away from them; to the fire’s dismay and the sea’s rage.

He loves his freedom too much it would seem.

He continues his endless dance.

\--

Some hundred years later his brother the flame takes a human form.

Logi, his father whispers the flame’s new name, and his brother take his first human steps. His brother looks toward the skies and smiles; his face twisted in joy as he spreads human hand against his chosen lover’s breast.

His brother conceives two daughters with her, Eisa and Eimirya, and they are both beautiful. Logi could not be more proud of the life he’d chosen. He picks up his daughters and shows them to their brother the sea, who pulls the girls into his currents while their laughter rings high.

The wind is curious.

He brushed one of the girl’s hair, testing the way it feels, before brushing her tiny dress dry. The tiny thing gives a happy squeal, clapping her hands against the dress to keep it down, her sister laughs and tries to grab at him. He slips through her fingers, unwilling to let himself be caught by anyone.

Logi smiles; “I’m happy you’re here brother.”

The wind says nothing.

Logi’s smile does not falter; “They’re beautiful; aren’t they?

The sea answers him; roaring in agreement with his fleshened brother. The ocean waters sing it’s congratulations; then it laughs and warns of future broken hearts and bones. The wind says nothing; only brushes his brother’s hair as dances away. He does not understand the tiny things his brother had created, nor does he see the appeal in them.

He hears his brother’s sad sigh as he goes.

\--

His brother the sea does not keep his intangible form much longer after Logi’s transformation. His half-human-half-mer body pulls itself out of the sea only days after the visit from Logi and his two daughters. 

Ægir, their fathers whisper the name, as he rises from beneath the sea foam. Ægir has chosen a boisterous form; strong and bearded and so very alive. He strains new muscles and gives a strong laugh that could be matched by no one. His brother hosts a party; inviting everyone from high ranking mortal to king deities. Many attended, pleasantly surprised by how magnificent the party was, and found themselves with good fortune and company there.

The wind attended at the behest of his father Ymir. 

Ægir gives a mighty laugh that fills the room when the wind blows against his new beard. His brother waves a hand against the wind’s intangible form; letting strong fingers grasp at the uncatchable trails. Ægir laughs with his entire body; a new amusement lighting his eyes.

“I have never been quite this happy brother.” The laughs; letting his hands rest across his chest. “And you’ve never been more beautiful.”

The wind does not respond.

Ægir isn’t deterred. “This body feels things; things I’d no idea of before.”

Ægir steps into the crowd, searching for their brother Logi, but finding a rather beautiful woman he’d someday call his wife instead. The wind watchs the little interaction for an entire minute before he is bored of them. He dances through the crowd as well; searching for his fathers and soon finding near a giant barrel of mead.

He does not leave their side the entire night; even when they encourage him to speak to someone, anyone, in this room.

\--

Everyone expects the wind to take a human form after his brothers.

They are disappointed.

He is the wind, bowing to no one, not even the promise of mortal pleasures. He goes where he pleases; unheading of the spirits that try and ride against him. He dances endlessly against the sky; wanting for nothing but this endless joy he feels. He is unheading of his fathers’ worries or this brothers’ concern. He is happy as he is; feeling no desire. 

He whistles. 

It’s a happy tune. 

Many spirits stop for a moment, not used to such a sound from him.

He ignores them, uncaring of their concerns and judgments, because he is honestly happy with the way things are. He is comfortable.

\--

There isn’t any problem until some thousand and handful of hundred years after humanity started naming the years. 

He blew the the forest of what was now call Colonial America, contented with his dance with pine needles and leaves, the new birds pushing themselves from the beds and grabbing onto the edge of himself in order to gain their first flight. He brushed past the petals of newborn flowers; weaving them into a joyous song.

Then there was her.

A young mortal woman of average look; her brown hair pulled into a tight bun underneath a pale cream bonnet, a pale grey dress draped restrictively around her body, her pale hands grasping at the branches above her as she tried to climb a tall birch tree. A boring looking woman; one who wore the same clothes and the same color as every other woman within her settlement. There should have been nothing about her that would have drawn the attention of the wind itself; especially since much more beautiful goddesses and spirits had tried so before.

But she did catch his attention.

Her brushed against the edge of her dress; letting it billow against him. The woman gave a scandalized gasp and moved one of her hands, previously wrapped around the birch branch, to hold down her skirts. She hung limply from the branch; a single hand holding her up as he brushed her to and fro. The woman scolded; “Here now, we’ll have none of that now.”

He brushes her skirts again.

The woman releases neither the branch nor the skirt; she hand on stubbornly to both. She is unwilling to sacrifice both comfort and dignity to him; so he brushes against her bonnet instead. The bonnet flies from her head and floats gracefully to the ground.

To the wind’s surprise the woman laughs instead of scolds.

She must have not liked that bonnet; the wind figures.

\--

He is intangible; thus everywhere at once. So it would not be accurate to say he decided to visit the woman again so much as simply pay attention to her again.

This time she is working in a field meant for growing mortal food. The sun is strong today, and the woman is sweating heavily beneath her very conservative dress. He doesn’t understand why one would work beneath the sun in such heavy clothing, but the mortal in this day and age are much stranger than their ancient ancestors.

He brushes against the woman’s brow; letting a breeze cool her.

She smiled.

\--

He visits the girl again the next day.

This time she is helping what he assumes to be her father bring in fish from Ægir’s waters. Such a thing was strange for a woman of this settlement, but she clearly has her father there to keep the lingering hands of sailor at bay. Though the looks she gets aren't so easily kept in line.

When one bold sailor gets to close after the father’s attention is turned to a net of fish the wind takes it upon himself to blow a rope in his path and trip him into Ægir’s body. 

This was a mistake.

\--

Ægir is there the next day.

He spends the day observing the settlement; trying to look for something magnificent enough to catch his oldest brother’s attention. He looks almost disappointed when he finds nothing more that an average settlement with few beautiful people.

“What was here brother?” Ægir, his eyes stubbornly searching the settlement.

He completely overlooks the woman.

\--

The wind does not visit for another month.

When he does she is in the forest again; this time simply enjoying the shade of a tree. Her hair is let out of the bun, and she brushes the stingy waves with an old comb.

The wind plays with her hair; earning a huff from the woman. She tries to brush down her hair, but he refuses to let her. He find a small amusement in her huffy expression and waves the strands against the breeze. She forces them down and holds them with one hand while trying her best to brush. It doesn't take long for her to simply give up and twist her hair back into a bun.

He doesn’t pout.

\--

“Where has your attention been going, child.” His father Mistblindi asks; a hand brushing against his currents.

The wind doesn’t answer.

\--

“I can’t help but wonder.” Logi approached their father, Ymir. “Just what has distracted my brother the wind from his dance,”

Ymir, being the earth itself, knew the answer and whispered it into Logi’s ear.

The wind raged at the perceived betrayal.

\--

Logi met the wind’s woman the next day.

He seemed surprised by what he saw; for the woman was neither beautiful nor wealthy. She held no power, nor did she possesses a limitless fountain of intelligence. She wasn’t of royal nor divine blood, and owned no lands.

Yet, amazingly, she did hold the attention of the beautiful and powerful wind. Something beautiful gods and powerful spirits fought for, and failed to gain. That such an average woman, who had not even thought to try, held the attention of beautiful, graceful, powerful brother wind struck Logi.  
Ægir, whom had not believed his brother, was similarly stunned when he met the wind’s woman.

He was even more surprised when the wind pushed him right back into the sea.

\--

“There is no shame in caring about something.” His father whispered as he, too, intruded on the wind’s woman.

And the wind raged; because there was shame there. There was shame in fondness; shame in the loss of true freedom, shame in the loss of his endless dances, shame in the thought of her, shame in her image always in his mind. He is ashamed of her, and of himself. He hates her. He loves her. Her resents her. Her wants her. 

She does not know him.

There is shame in her distraction. There is shame in being held to her. There is shame that she could be used against him. There is shame, shame, shameshameshame.

She does not know him.

He hates her.

He wants her attentions, he wants her touch, he wants her laughter and joy.

He wants.

For the first time; the wind hates himself.

\--

It is a month later he loses himself.

He takes a mortal form before her.

\--

She knows him.

Apart of her, she says, always knew she was there. From the moment he rocked her on the branch in the birch tree. To the moment the rope seemed to move on its own to trip the sailor in the water. To the moment the only half-human man roamed into the village unseen and stared straight at her.

She touches him; caresses his face. He’s beautiful, she says, more beautiful than anyone she’s ever seen before. She plays with his long white hair and runs her thumbs across high cheekbones. And he’s so pale; she whispers.

He flexes his new fingers; unused to this kind of touch and unsure he even likes it. This body feels wrong; he thinks to himself. He hates it; hates this limited body and this strange touch and this strange state of existence. He wants to destroy it; wants to take the memory of it and destroy it. He wants dance freely across the sky again; his joy limited by nothing.

But he also wants the woman.

So he takes her hand as she pulls him into her home; where he father dwells.

“Kari.” He hears the voice of his father whisper as she closes the door to her dwelling.

\--

He stays with Aslaug and her father for quite some time.

They are the only ones he allows to seem him.

\--

He stays with her when her father dies.

She cries into his neck; clinging to him like a life-line.

\--

He stays with her when the other members of the settlement start to gossip about her lack of marriage. About the lack of a man in the house to reign her in, and how scandalous it is to have such a woman here.

She does not stay in the settlement.

He leaves with her.

\--

They travel for sometime.

He brings her food and drink; finds her cloth for new clothes and new bone combs for her hair. And they travel undisturbed by bandits or Native peoples or the threat of spirits because he keeps them away from them.

She kisses his lips.

\--

Some time later she takes him to her bed.

It is a strange sensation. He’d not cared to do this before, nor did he very much care for it now. He was left confused by his brothers’ and many other’s enjoyment of the activity even has his own lover wringed under him. There were strange noises, and sweat, and movements, and fluids everywhere. He found it a chore to get through; not taking any enjoyment from the warmth of being inside her.

Her preferred her chaste touches; the loving caress of his face, the soft brush of finger tips, her head resting against his shoulder. Though he’d prefer to be the one brushing against her in his intangible form; his free body lovingly intertwined around her.

But she loves this strange intimacy with him so he carries on.

\--

He builds her a home when he finds a settlement she likes.

Burgess.

\--

The people here whisper about her.

The wind is slowly losing love for her with every night he spends in her bed, but he knows how women are in this world and what it’s like for them so he does not leave her. He cannot bear mortal form, but he cannot leave her. It is unfair the her love is becoming unrequited, and more so when he knows that her society only cares for virgin and married women. He feels responsible for his own misery, and feels if he’d just known how to lover her the way they both wanted things would be happier.

She must have noticed something, because one day she announces to him that he wishes to find herself a husband among the village people here. He is silently torn between relief and despair; blaming himself for love lost and misery gained, but relishing the thought of shedding mortal form. Aslaug just holds his face between her hands and rubs her thumbs over his cheekbones. Their last night together is chaste; merely holding each other by the firelight.

He watches over her until she marries a man named Jack Overland a mere month later.

Her only leaves her after Jack takes her to his bed.

\--

He doesn’t shed mortal form immediately.

First he visits his fathers; wishing to ask what he’d done wrong. Unfortunately, his brothers are both there. They both stand when he arrive; smiles spreading across both their faces as they take in his form. They look more proud of him than he’s ever seen. His brothers are happy, honestly happy, for him.

He hates it.

Logi reaches up to clasp his shoulder; “Brother! You’re glorious.”

Ægir throw an arm around his thin shoulders; “He speaks the truth, Kari! I’m sure you’ve made your bride very happy!”

He tilts his head away from Ægir and does not speak. He has no bride; could Ægir not see that? What he had with Aslaug was not a marriage; it was two people coming together looking for some semble of love they both wanted. It hadn’t worked; he’d failed her. He hurt her.

He stays silent as his brothers congratulate him.

\--

His father is a bit less enthusiastic. 

Mistblindi has never understood his eldest son, but he was always willing to try and form some kind of knowledge about Kari’s ways and habit. He tries, and that is enough for Kari.

Kari uses no words with his father. He simply grabs his father’s face between his too small hands and rubs his thumbs over the cheekbones. And Mistblindi simply lets him; not moving to stop his strange child. They stay like that for sometime before Mistblindi raises his own hands and cups the child’s cheeks.

Kari is uncomfortable; that much is clear to him. Mistblindi has no idea what goes through Kari’s mind, but he’s fine with his son’s ways and wants Kari to understand that. He is unsure of what to do with this child, doesn’t know what to say, so he says nothing and just holds his child. Maybe that was what Kari needed right now; silent comfort.

It seems to help, staying silent, because Kari’s shoulders settled the smallest bit. It was the most comfortable he’d look since he’d returned to his family, and Mistblindi felt a small bit of accomplishment at the small change.

\--

Kari goes to his father Ymir before he sheds his mortal form.

He need not say a thing, and Kari finds comfort in that.

\--

The weeks following the shedding of his mortal form are the happiest he’d ever been.

The lost of his love for Aslaug still caused him pain, as did his failure to keep her happy, but he’d never felt more free than they day he’d let go of the body. He was free again; finally comfortable with his own form and willing sing for the world.

He danced against the open sky; underneath the sun and moon, in the snow and the rain, during the summer and the winter. He was happy; truly happy. And he sang his happiness to all; spreading songs of joy to all who would listen. Many seemed to listen these days; often they took a moment to tilt an ear towards him.

Logi often tilted his head back and let Kari play with his hair; a sharp ear listening for the words of his song. “I just don’t understand how you’re so happy like that, Kari.”

Kari whistles in his brothers ear.

Logi smiles; “I suppose if this is what keeps you singing...I can accept that.”

Kari hums; content.

\--

Ægir just shrugged his shoulders; “Can’t say I understand it. Always liked mortal form myself; especially the sex. But to each his own; that’s what I say.”

Kari whistles in his ear.

Ægir laughs; “Least you’re not a hermit anymore, but my lovely children are going to be very cross with you. I bragged about getting to see your face, and now you’ve gone and gotten rid of it! My wife will be very cross with you!”

Kari blow a wave in his brother’s face.

Ægir laughs.

\--

It isn’t until some time later when he notices that his happiness comes from an outside source. There is some external force making him happy; it’s existence small but bright. Kari finds himself curious of this force that has intruded upon him, and seeks to find it.

He is back at Burgess where he’d left his former lover some time ago.

He finds it within her home; cradled within her arms. Her husband is there; eyes studying the small brunnet boy his wife rocked to sleep. Kari is fascinated, and seeks to take a closer look at the child.

That’s when he senses it; the spark of life that was his own deep within the boy’s very soul. This is a child of his; a boy conceived of Kari and a mortal woman. He is struck for a moment; then it dawns on him the meaning behind such an occurrence. What it means, why she sought a husband, what this meant for the boy.

The bastard child of Kari; thought to be the legitimate child of Jack Overland.

Kari is unsure what to feel; he does not want to leave the boy, he does not want to ruin the boy’s life, he does not want to take mortal form, he does not want to be absent from his son’s life.

It strikes Kari.

He does not want to leave the boy. That was not something that had happened since the boy’s mother, and yet it was different. He did not feel the desire he felt for the mother; no. He felt a small, unfamiliar, warmth at the sight of the young boy.

And then he laughed; small hands rubbing at his mother’s swollen belly.

For the first time in his life; Kari felt a need to please. To do whatever he could to hear that laugh again. There was a devotion spreading within him; belonging completely and totally to this child. And it terrified him. Something deeper and stronger than anything he’d ever felt for the mother chained him to this boy, and it sent a thrill of fear through him like he’d never felt before. 

He was a failure; one who wasn’t able to please anyone.

He wouldn’t be able to make this child happy.

And he was scared. He was terrified by that failure and the power it held over him; by the power this small child suddenly held over him. He was the winde; unbound, unbent, unbroken. He’s never been tamed by the wills of another. He was the truly free; the very avatar of freedom. That he should be tied so tied to something, to someone, that he could feel destroyed by its absence was beyond his comprehension.

All he’d done before, all he’d ever done, had been of his own will. Even with Aslaug he’d been following his own desire for affection. But he felt like he needed this one; like he couldn’t survive without this child. He feels absolute horror when he realizes he brushed the hair out of the child’s eyes absentmindedly. 

It was difficult to take his attention away from the child.

\--

He goes to Ægir; who has many children.

Ægir is alarmed by his brother’s sudden wailing. The wind rushes around him; hysterics and uncontrolled wails sending his waves into a panic. He squared his shoulders; fighting to stand against his brother’s panicked whirlwind. 

Ægir isn’t able to understand his brother’s wails, but he stands anyway.

\--

Ægir was forced to summon his father Mistblindi to the waters of Midgard.

Remarkably, he was able to calm Kari.

\--

“He has a child?” Ægir was disbelieving. “We should celebrate! Rán! Get the mead! We’ll be hosting another party tonight!”

“Or…” Logi cut in, desperate to uphold his older brother’s currently failing emotional state. “We could sit down, calm our brother, and then see what we can be done about this situation.”

Ægir looked disheartened; he turned towards his father Mistblindi. “What do you think should be done, Father?”

Mistblindi looked so very tired. “He must help himself.”

\--

Kari did, eventually, find a way to calm himself.

He never revealed himself before his son; he only watched. Sometimes he brush the boy’s hair or billow his cloak in order to hear they boy laugh. He leads him away from dangers in the forest; coercing wayward spirits away from the village, singing small lullabies in his ear at night, and blowing the Sandman’s dreamsand into the boy’s eye when he refused to sleep.

Unfortunately, this was a mistake.

\--

Other spirits had taken notice of his obsession with the village of Burgess.

Pitch Black, unfortunately, lived in the area.

Kari, for all he was paranoid and overprotective of the his son, was not concerned about the Nightmare King. Pitch was the embodiment of fear, but only seemed to spread nightmares to sleeping mortals. If anything, it seemed to Kari, Pitch spreading a decent amount of fear to keep wayward children from hurting themselves was a good thing; especially with Jackson being as mischievous as he was.

Kari hated that name; Jackson, the son of Jack.

But he wasn’t thinking about his child’s name; he was thinking about Pitch Black and the trust that Kari placed within the man.

If only he’d known what the man had done prior to his stay on Midgard; he’d never have left the village without making sure the man was gone and silenced.

\--

Kari was dancing for Logi when it happened.

Jackson’s life slipped from within him.

He howled.

He did not stop for his startled brother; he needed Jackson now.

And then he was there on the lake near the boy’s home; broken ice spread around a gaping hole in the ice, Jackson’s half-sister banging at the surface and screaming her brother’s name, and the horrific sound of a wraith screaming.

He screamed and descended to the water, but was unable to break the surface. So he howled and scream and cried out for the child. And Jackson’s poor sister was left scared and confused and with the memory of her brother’s smile before he fell through the ice. But he didn’t care about the girl, because his son was down there.

He never noticed the girl run off.

He never even noticed his own father pulling at him; trying to speak to his grieving son to see what was wrong. Kari was having none of it; he wouldn’t leave his boy. He wouldn’t leave him. He wouldn’t leave him.

His father Ymir called him, and for the first time Kari denied him.

\--

He prowled the lake.

He would not sing so long as his son’s body stayed in the water.

He could feel them, his family, trying to call him towards them. He could hear their worried words and haggard nerves. He could feel his father’s frantic calls and his brothers boisterous voice ringing his name. He could feel his brother’s plea for a return; his worried questions being shouted into the air. Only Ymir remained silent now.

But Kari would answer none until his son was pulled out the lake.

\--

Aslaug knew he was there when she arrived.

She reacted no better to the news than him.

\--

Kari did not leave the lake even when his father found him and sat at the icy shore.

He did not leave with his father.

\--

Logi come next.

“I’m so sorry brother.”

\--

Another day passes. The moon is full tonight.

\--

His son rises from the lake; pale haired and moving and breathing and alive. 

Kari is filled with a sense of joy again. When disbelief has passed he gave a cry of delight before sweeping his son up and cradling him. He gave a delighted laugh to match the boy’s own before tossing him the boy up in a mighty game.

His boy landed in a tree.

...Opps…

\--

Kari found that he could no longer deny his boy anything.

If Jokul Frosti, as he would now name his newly Wintered child, wanted to go somewhere he was flown there on his father’s currents. The boy was allowed to direct the wind as none before nor none after had ever been allowed. It was Jokul who lead the wind now; dancing along the currents in a way that sent a swell of pride through his father’s chest. 

Kari sang in the boy’s ear; sweet songs of life and freedom amidst the skies where they both belonged. And Jokul danced with a lightness and grace Kari believes he’d never achieve in his own mortal form. His boy painted the world with ice and soft snow; blanketing the earth with an art more beautiful to Kari than the Spring flowers or Autumn leaves.

Kari is filled with a joy and lightness unmatched by even the first shedding of his mortal form.

**Author's Note:**

> For those of you who want more information about Kari: http://www.northernpaganism.org/shrines/kari/about.html
> 
> Please leave questions in the comments.


End file.
